Research Cites 6 Workplace Trends Affecting Employee Engagement

Seattle, WA-based engagement research firm TINYpulse recently released its 2017 Employee Engagement Report, “The Broken Bridges of the Workplace.” After reviewing over a million anonymous employee responses, researchers note that “organizational culture and peers play a key role in employee engagement, while lack of recognition and professional development opportunities can derail any progress made towards a positive work experience.” The report outlines six major trends impacting today’s work environment:

The invisible culture reigns supreme: The top factors related to employee happiness turn out to be the intangible ones such as interpersonal relationships, culture, and work environment. Benefits, work-life balance, and flexible schedules, surprisingly, don’t have a strong impact on employee happiness.

Disconnected network of peers: Only 24% of employees feel connected to their peers — 11% lower than last year, and this gap is causing cross-functional frictions.

Employee recognition is getting worse: A paltry one in four employees feel valued at work — 16% drop from last year — because managers are falling behind in their recognition efforts.

Lack of transparency leads to lack of professional growth: There’s a startling rift between employee and manager perspectives. 25% of employees believe management is very transparent, and 26% see adequate opportunities for growth. For managers, those numbers are nearly doubled.

Performance reviews are still lacking: 79% of employees don’t think their organization’s performance review process is very good. And the top factor that’s dragging this down? Professional growth.

The surprising link between employee engagement and performance: Companies who have shifted from annual to frequent pulse performance reviews have employees that feel more valued and rate management transparency higher.